Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-45 mm f/4.0 PRO review - Chromatic and spherical aberration

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Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-45 mm f/4.0 PRO

3 June 2020

Maciej Latałło

5. Chromatic and spherical aberration

Chromatic aberration

Longitudinal chromatic aberration makes itself felt a bit at the maximum focal length – not a strong effect but certainly noticeable. At the shorter end of the focal spectrum we didn't notice any problems for a change.

Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-45 mm f/4.0 PRO - Chromatic and spherical aberration

Now let's check lateral chromatic aberration – its performance, depending on focal lengths and aperture values presents a graph below.

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At both ends of the focal range aberration depends weakly on aperture values and keeps a level of 0.04-0.06% no matter what aperture you set. In the case of the 25 mm focal length the aberration described here, increases quickly with the decrease of the relative aperture: it is 0.02% near f/4.0 and it gets to 0.05% in an aperture range from f/11 to f/22. Still, it should be clearly stated that values up to 0.04% are considered negligible as they are practically imperceptible in real life photos. The 0.04-0.06% range, so maximum values shown by the tested Olympus in this category, are on the borderline between low and very low level. As a result our assessment of the correction of lateral chromatic aberration is very high and definitely positive.

E-M5 II, RAW, 12 mm, f/16.0	E-M5 II, RAW, 25 mm, f/4.0

Spherical aberration

First photos of this chapter prove that the lens doesn't have any 'focus shift' effect – circles produced before and after the focus aren't perhaps identical but they don't show any significant differences either. All of this indicates that there are no serious problems with correcting spherical aberration.